Avoid the Free Credit Report Scams, it really is free.

Many of you have probably seen those so called "Free" credit reports all over television, the radio, and the Internet.

I can't believe how people fall for this scam. The 3 major credit bureaus offer a look at your credit report for free once per year.

Here is some great links--

First of all, our friends at the FTC have us covered. This page outlines what is a scam, and what isn't.

The only site that is free is annualcreditreport.com

The only hook is that you are only allowed to check your credit on the 3 major bureaus once every 12 months. What I do is check one bureau every 4 months using the annualcreditreport.com website.

When you get into the reports, here is what to expect. You will see a snapshot of all the credit that you have out. Every loan, every revolving credit account, every credit card, etc. You will also see a bunch of old accounts that you had closed, paid off, etc.

You will not see your actual credit score. They want a little under ten dollars to get your score. If you take a deep look at your credit snapshot, you won't need to pay the money, unless you really would like to.

I recommend that everyone has a good look at their credit, and figures out how they can improve their score.

I recently applied for a home mortgage, and wanted to make sure that my credit was in order before applying. Everything on the 3 major bureaus looked excellent. When I applied for the mortgage, the broker ran my credit. He came back with a score of 761. I'm pretty pleased with this score, but there is room for improvement.

The credit snapshot offers codes, or ways to improve your score. Mine was to "reduce debt on accounts." So basically I had to pay off my student loans..

Wish me luck!

I bought a house, you can too.

I've been pretty busy this past month, hence the lack of posts.

Anyways, this is a major money saver that I wanted to share with all my viewers.

I bought a house!

If you are able to look past all the gloom and doom on the nightly news, then you will see that there are many deals to be had in the real estate market. That combined with cheap interest rates is a good buying market, and an EXCELLENT buying market for first time buyers.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the loan procedure, and what to expect, as well as the loan program that is PAYING ME to use their loan product.

First thing is first. Get a competent mortgage broker. I made this mistake at first, but thanks to my realtor and brother (I'll introduce him later), I was able to correct it in a BIG way.

It is so important to look around and get a good mortgage broker. It is the difference between someone looking after YOU and someone looking after their commission checks.

I had decided that I wanted to go with a SONYMA home loan. This loan applies to residents of New York state, but check around with your local broker, and see if they have a similar program.

Now, here is what the SONYMA program was able to do for me. I decided to go with the Achieving the Dream SONYMA program. The link will explain the loan program, and it worked great for me. My terms were a 30 year foxed loan, for 5.5% interest, with only 1 percent down. Plus SONYMA is giving me a $5000 grant to pay my closing costs.

Linking from the SONYMA website was a few banks. I took a look at the top of the page, and there was Bank of America. I thought great, I have a checking account with them, I'll do the loan with them.

Boy was I ever wrong. The woman I was dealing with kept pushing me to do a conventional loan with Bank of America, and wouldn't even consider doing another loan for me. It was either the fact that she didn't know how to do the SONYMA loan properly, or she was acting in her own interests, not mine. She was very rude on the telephone, and very pushy.

I then asked my brother, who was acting as my real estate agent, to help me out. His name is Joel HusVar, and he works for Farley Real Estate Enterprises.

He put me in touch with M&T Bank.

That was a great turning point for me. I worked with a true professional, and learned that M&T specializes in doing this type of loan, they had a whole floor of people who just did that loan. I spent two hours with my mortgage broker, talking face to face. He acted in my interests the entire time, and did a great job with the loan. His advise and service was absolutely excellent. Send me a message through the comments, and I'll get you in touch with him.

So, I had a loan secured, and it was time to go house shopping. I worked with Joel HusVar in his office, and he was able to do an interview with me, asking what I wanted in a house, and what I didn't want.

We narrowed it down to about 150 properties, then down to 50, then 25. We ended up viewing about 10 properties before I found the one I wanted to make an offer on.

We ended up making an offer on the house, and after a few counteroffers, we did get the house under contract!

Time to get the property inspected..

I again turned to Joel for advice. He recommended an excellent service, that had reasonable rates. This guy was fully licensed, and totally professional. He spent about 3 hours with me showing me everything in my house, and what to look out for. I left with a large binder of information and his report.

We are going to be closing on the property in Late April.

Wish me luck in the new world of home ownership..